Refugee
Alan Gratz (2017)
“Three children. Three crises. Seventy years apart. One devastating truth about what it means to flee everything you know.”
At a Glance
Three children from different eras and continents — Josef fleeing Nazi Germany in 1939, Isabel escaping Cuba in 1994, and Mahmoud running from war-torn Syria in 2015 — make desperate journeys by sea seeking refuge. Their stories unfold in parallel, alternating chapters, until they converge in a shocking and devastating final act that reveals how the same human tragedy repeats across generations.
Read full summary →Why This Book Matters
Refugee was an immediate commercial and critical success — unusual for a novel dealing with this subject matter at the middle-grade level. It appeared on the New York Times bestseller list for over 100 weeks and became one of the most-assigned books in American middle schools, appearing on summer reading lists and whole-school reads programs across the country. It arrived in 2017 during an acute political debate about Syrian refugees, and its presence in classrooms generated both adoption and controversy.
Diction Profile
Accessible and immediate — present tense, close third-person, age-appropriate vocabulary with moments of precise historical and geographical specificity
Moderate and purposeful